You’re Invited: Celebrate Indigenous Art Via “Close Encounters:The Next 500 Years” April 16, 2012

This video gives you a glimpse of Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years:

  •  an international exhibition of contemporary indigenous art presented by Winnipeg Cultural Capital of Canada 2010 and organized by Plug In Institute for Contemporary Art with a number of other Winnipeg galleries

“Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years” was a banner project for Winnipeg Cultural Capital of Canada 2010 Program comprised of a large-scale exhibition on Indigenous art from around the world, featuring:

  • 34 Indigenous artists from across:
    • Canada
    • United States
    • South America
    • Europe
    • Australia
    • New Zealand
  • newly commissioned work from
    • Canadian artists such as:
    • American artists such as:
      • Jimmie Durham and his sculptural work A Pole to Mark the Centre of the World (at Winnipeg) was an ongoing critique of widely held ideas surrounding space and location,
      • James Luna and his poignant installation The Spirits of Virtue and Evil Await my Ascension, addressed issues of ritual and the passing of time.

Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years  is about “artists and artworks that collectively invent provocative futures from a diversity of perspectives and practices.”

The following event in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is a celebration of Indigenous art and thought as well as a  launch of Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years (the publication) which:

  • “is a critical reader and exhibition catalogue with full colour photos from the exhibition
  • features 14 contributors’ essays that map four distinct sub-themes related to the imagined future for Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples”
You're Invited: Celebrate Indigenous Art Via "Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years" April 16, 2012
You're Invited: Celebrate Indigenous Art Via "Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years" April 16, 2012

UPCOMING EVENT

Close Encounters – Catalogue launch
The Gladstone Hotel, Main Ballroom, 1214 Queen Street West
April 16, 2012
Doors open at 7:00pm; Event starts at 7:30 pm

Admission: $5 or free with purchase of book

Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years
The Toronto Celebration and Catalogue Launch

“What will happen to Indigenous culture tomorrow? Through the cultural practices of today, we can begin to formulate what the future will bring. Join us for a lively evening of art, storytelling, performance and film.”

Featuring:

  • the art of Kent Monkman,
  • the storytelling of Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair
  • the films of Rebecca Belmore, Maria Thereza Alves and Tracy Moffat
  • a Manifesto performance by Steve Loft
  • and the curatorial presence of Lee-Ann Martin, Steve Loft and Candice Hopkins

Steve Loft is the National Visiting Trudeau Fellow at Ryerson University and a Scholar-in-Residence at the Ryerson Image Centre

Co-Organized with This Is Not A Reading Series (TINARS).

Co-Presented with the Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art and the Trudeau Foundation.

For more info about the “Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years” project and publication, please click here.

Also, for more info about the “Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years”, Indigenous Art Celebration event, please click here.

Contact Info
Ryerson Image Centre: Director of Marketing and Communications,
Heather Kelly, heatherkelly@ryerson.ca

This Is Not A Reading Series
Anna Withrow, phone: 416-805-2174,
awithrow@rogers.com

Enjoy!

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